- EU unveils new steel import quotas to protect its industry from competition at expense of consumers
Source: Reuters
“The European Commission unveiled quotas under the new system to limit duty-free steel imports into the EU, in a move designed to protect the bloc’s steel sector and increase its capacity utilisation. Under the new rules, the European Union’s annual tariff-free import quotas are slashed by 47% to 18.3 million metric tons, while an out-of-quota duty of 50% is introduced for 26 categories of steel products imported into the EU.” (06/30/26)
- SCOTUS agrees to review unconstitutional bans on AR-15s
Source: CNN
“The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will decide whether cities and states may ban people from owning AR-15 rifles and similar semi-automatic weapons, taking up a major Second Amendment dispute that it had previously declined to address. One of the appeals involving certain semi-automatic rifles came from two Illinois residents who want to purchase AR-15 style rifles but are blocked from doing so by an ordinance in Cook County that makes it unlawful to sell or possess any ‘assault weapon [sic] or large capacity magazine,’ specifically listing dozens of models that were off limits. Ten states have similar bans in place, according to the [victim disarmament] group Everytown for Gun Safety.” (06/30/26)
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/30/politics/ar-15-style-rifles-supreme-court-second-amendment
- Italy: Arrests made after bomb attack targets investigative journalist threatened by mafia
Source: CBS News
“Italian police on Tuesday arrested four people suspected of carrying out an October bomb attack targeting a prominent journalist who had been threatened by the mafia. The blast in a residential neighborhood of Pomezia, about 12 miles south of Rome, destroyed two cars belonging to Sigfrido Ranucci, known for investigations into corruption and the mafia. Ranucci had just returned home at the time, and his daughter had walked by a half-hour before, his employer said at the time. … The explosion targeting Ranucci occurred on the eighth anniversary of the car bomb slaying of Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who wrote extensively about suspected corruption in political and business circles. Like Ranucci, she had faced dozens of libel suits intended to silence her reporting.” (06/30/26)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/arrests-bomb-attack-targets-journalist-threatened-mafia-italy/
- How I Busted the Ruby Ridge Coverup
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Jim Bovard“In 1991, an ATF informant entrapped Randy Weaver into selling him two sawed-off shotguns. After ATF officials lied to a federal prosecutor, Weaver was indicted and sent the wrong court date. On August 21, 1992, after numerous illegal incursions onto Weaver’s Ruby Ridge mountaintop property near the Canadian border, three U.S. marshals dressed in Ninja outfits and carrying submachine guns ambushed Weaver’s 14-year old son and family friend Kevin Harris. One marshal shot the boy’s dog and a firefight erupted in which another marshal was killed. As Sammy Weaver ran from the scene towards the family’s ramshackle cabin, a marshal shot him in the back and killed him. The next day, the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team arrived. Within an hour of its snipers taking position, every adult in the cabin was either dead or severely wounded—even though they had not fired a shot at the FBI.” (06/30/26)
https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/how-i-busted-the-ruby-ridge-coverup
- The US Should Exit the UN
Source: Brownstone Institute
by Wendy McElroy“The UN is often viewed as an ineffectual bureaucracy that occasionally does some good. It is nothing so benevolent. Its origins may have been well-meaning, but the current UN has become what it claims to oppose. The US should leave the UN altogether and immediately, especially since its unjust policies are likely to get worse … and soon.” (06/30/26)
- Bastiat Was Right: Tariffs Make The World Poorer
Source: The Daily Economy
by Kevin Lavery“Bastiat’s Petition of the Candlemakers lays bare the absurdity of protectionism. Offering preferential treatment to less efficient domestic producers artificially raises prices, restricts consumer choice, and decreases exports. Tariffs harm consumers, workers, and exporters while failing to accomplish their stated goals: they fail to meaningfully shift the balance of trade or promote domestic industry and employment, and more generally harm everyone involved, including protected industries. Given these realities, it is no surprise that a negative opinion of tariffs has been a virtual consensus among economists for centuries — just ask Adam Smith …” (06/30/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/bastiat-was-right-tariffs-make-the-world-poorer/
- Intellectual Property versus the Unrealized
Source: Cobden Centre
by Per Bylund“Why would anyone invest large sums of capital into creating something new of uncertain income? This question captures the core of the argument for intellectual property, or the legal protection of inventors’ ideas from being copied and put to broader use. The simple logic appears intuitive and therefore persuasive, but does not stand up to scrutiny. Why? Because it applies to all entrepreneurship, which is always an investment in something of uncertain value. Yet this does not seem to stop entrepreneurs. Or, rather, it moderates which entrepreneurial projects are undertaken so that the craziest ideas are not pursued unless they are potentially very profitable.” (06/30/26)
https://www.cobdencentre.org/2026/06/intellectual-property-versus-the-unrealized/
- Bitcoin Is Not Freedom: The Delusion of Digital Escape
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Hamoon Soleimani“Within digital-libertarian circles, there is a persistent, almost religious belief that decentralized cryptocurrencies will organically starve the state of its power by enabling parallel, untaxable counter-economies. This techno-optimistic prophecy assumes that because the state cannot break the underlying mathematics of cryptography, it is effectively disarmed. Yet, this worldview conflates economic friction with true sovereignty. Treating code as an exit strategy ignores the enduring reality that human beings reside in physical space, governed by Westphalian models of territorial jurisdiction.” (06/30/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/bitcoin-not-freedom-delusion-digital-escape
- Has “the Revolution” Already Passed AOC By?
Source: Town Hall
by Derek Hunter“The song ‘Right Here, Right Now’ by Jesus Jones opens with the line, ‘A woman on the radio talks about revolution, when it’s already passed her by’. There are some people who peaked in high school and never got over it – never changing their hair or general style from when they were at the pinnacle of popularity. It’s sad, really, not that the person seems frozen in the midst of good memories from long ago, but that they haven’t continued to advance since then. Life has lapped them; passed them by and left them in the dust. In many ways, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is like that person who hasn’t moved forward, having been lapped by events and left behind by the ‘revolution’ she was the spokesmodel for.” (06/30/26)
- The Hidden Impact of Government Delays
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Daniel J Mitchell“Recently, members of the Trump administration found themselves in a tug of war between two groups of people who have opposing views about how or whether the federal government should regulate artificial intelligence. Critics say that moving too fast on AI could create risks. Others say that America can’t compete against China under a tight regulatory regime. We are, after all, competing in one of the most important technological races of the 21st century. But the fundamental question is much bigger than AI. Whether it is regulatory debates centered around tech, housing, energy, or healthcare, American policymakers should start each policy debate by asking themselves one important question: How much progress must we sacrifice for the sake of caution?” (06/30/26)
https://fee.org/articles/the-hidden-impact-of-government-delays/
- The seas they pillage
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Madsen Pirie“The European Union presents itself to the world as the gold standard of regulated, enlightened governance. Nowhere is the gap between that self-image and reality more vivid than in its management, or rather mismanagement, of the seas. The Common Fisheries Policy, now over four decades old, stands as one of the more instructive monuments to what happens when a bureaucratic cartel manages a commons. Everyone takes as much as they can, the resource collapses, and Brussels announces a new action plan.” (06/30/26)
- Both ingenuity and faith deepen the AI design discussion
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“GPT-5.3-Codex, 5.5 Pro, and 5.6 Family. Gemini 3.1 Family and 3.5 Flash. DeepSeek-V4-Pro and Flash. Claude Opus 4.8, Fable 5, and Mythos 5. Voxtral TTS and Realtime … This hodgepodge of names and numbers captures only some of the many new or upgraded artificial intelligence models released in the first six months of 2026. The technology, it’s clear, is moving by leaps and bounds. In parallel, AI firms are taking smaller but arguably just as significant steps to incorporate core principles of ethics and moral and religious reasoning into model development. Some companies are embedding in-house ‘philosophers’ to help with complex questions surrounding design ethics at the human-AI interface. Google DeepMind reportedly has 10 such individuals on staff, hiring two from Cambridge and Carnegie Mellon universities this year. And Anthropic’s Amanda Askell has been featured in multiple media reports.” (06/29/26)
- Hawaii is making a dangerous bid to suppress free speech
Source: Washington Post
by Bradley A Smith“Americans of all persuasions routinely join and support groups — typically organized as corporations — to achieve their various goals, including political ones. However, critics of the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, which upheld the rights of corporations to spend money in support of political causes, insist the decision ‘corrupted’ American democracy. Hawaii has now taken the campaign against Citizens United to its logical endpoint. In May, the state enacted Act 11, a sweeping law designed to strip most incorporated organizations of the ability to engage in election- or ballot-related advocacy. Any corporations that spend money on such efforts could be suspended or dissolved. This new law is not evenhanded. Act 11 exempts newspapers, broadcasters and periodicals. These institutional media corporations retain full First Amendment rights while most other organizations lose theirs, making the government the arbiter of which corporations deserve a voice.” (06/30/26)
- The New Socialists: Elite, Ungrateful, and Toxic as Ever
Source: American Greatness
by Victor Davis Hanson“Win some blue-state and blue-city races, and the cocky new socialist Jacobins believe that they have either already taken over the Democratic Party or will soon absorb it. And in reaction to these new swarms, an increasingly terrified and ossified old Democrat guard either limps away from the hive or invites them in to take over more. It is fascinating but ultimately depressing to watch old-style Democrats say or do anything to avoid the new mob of Robespierres. Democrat candidates who recently begged for a Schumer/Pelosi/Jeffries endorsement now are telling them to get in line at the guillotine. Jewish American Democrats are terrified that what happened to the primaried and defeated Rep. Dan Goldman of New York, an arch-Trump hater, could befall them. Goldman’s obnoxious showboating hatred of Trump and championing of neo-socialist agendas offered no defense against the Jacobins’ antisemitism and hatred of Israel.” (06/30/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/06/30/the-new-socialists-elite-ungrateful-and-toxic-as-ever/
- Law & Liberty Podcast, 06/30/26
Source: Law & Liberty
“Hillsdale’s Bradley J. Birzer joins James Patterson to talk about the Declaration of Independence. They discuss the American colonies’ devout Protestantism, their love of the classics, and their identification with the Anglo-Saxon constitutional tradition. Birzer concludes with a stirring assessment of why the Constitution matters.” (06/30/26)
- Trump Watch, 06/30/26
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“Perpetual War, Conflict, and Chaos for Americans.” (06/30/26)
- The Bryan Hyde Show, 06/30/26
Source: The Bryan Hyde Show
“Eric Peters from Eric Peters Autos joins me to talk about our upcoming Independence Day celebration, what it represents and why so few people seem to remember its basis.” (06/30/26)